From: JASA
37 (March 1985): 52-54.The physicist Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1952) was
one of six children of a midwest clergyman of Scottish
descent. His daily work on the farm and summer factory
experience set a pattern for his industrious life.

At seventeen he graduated from high school, where he
found the teaching of physics poor-as it was throughout the
nation. After a year at Oberlin Prep he entered the college
there, where physics turned out to be a complete disaster. His
interest in this subject became aroused only in his third year
when he was asked to teach it at the Prep; he found
problem-solving a fascinating introduction. With an M.A. at
twenty-five he received a fellowship in physics at Columbia
University; here he studied optics with Michael Pupin. He
spent the summer at the University of Chicago with Albert Michelson. Even though his appointment had not been
renewed, he returned to Columbia where he completed his
Ph.D. research on the optical properties of metals. On
borrowed funds he spent the scientifically exciting year
1895-6 in Europe, particularly at Berlin and G6ttingen.

At twenty-eight he was offered an assistantship by Michelson, who gave him charge of the weekly seminar. Four
years later he was made responsible for all student research
under Michelson. He encouraged both colleagues and students to carry out their own fundamental investigations;
frequently he himself engaged in cooperative research with
them. Within two years he was made Assistant Professor,
and then Associate Professor five years later. Meanwhile, he
had married a former fellow student of Greek. By forty-two
he had been made Professor.

In 1912 he isolated the electron and measured this elementary electric charge e (off slightly because. of the poor value
used for the viscosity of air). Millikan regarded the electron
theory of matter as "one of the grandest, because simplest, of
all physical generalizations." He was made a member of the
National Academy of Science at forty-six. The following
year he made his most remarkable experiment, the verification of Einstein's photoelectric equation, with an accurate
determination of Planck's constant h. In 1923 he received the
Physics Nobel Prize for his work on e and h. Meanwhile, in
1917 he published some of this work (revised in 1924) and
amplified later in The Cornell Messenger Lectures, which
resulted in "Electrons (+ and -), Protons, Photons, Neutrons, Mesotrons, and Cosmic Rays" (rev. 1947).

Meanwhile, science was being mobilized for WWI. In
1916 Millikan took leave of absence from the University to
devote full time to being Chairman and Research Director of
the newly formed National Research Council's Physics Divison (which later included astronomy,
geoscience, and mathematics); he had the rank of Lt. Col. in the Signal Corps.
Later he was also made Vice-chairman and Executive Officer of the Council-until the end of 1918, when he returned
to the University.

He spent a couple of winter quarters in Pasadena with A.A. Noyes and G.E. Hale at the Throop Polytechnic
Institute, which became the California Institute of Technology in 1920. The following year Millikan became Director of
the new Norman Bridge Laboratory for Physics. He was an
active innovator at the new institution, which emphasized the
relationship of science and engineering; viz, entrance exams
for everyone, rotating chairmanships in lieu of departmental
heads, and an Executive Council (some faculty and Trustees)
in lieu of a president. He arranged for distinguished visiting
professors from abroad. Within a few years the CIT Associates were formed to raise funds for outstanding projects
and buildings; e.g., high voltage, aeronautics, seismology, the
Mt. Palomar 200" telescope, et al. Despite his heavy administrative load Millikan continued to do research of his
own particularly on cosmic rays. When this man of affairs died at
85, he left an imperishable monument-CIT!

His altruistic spirit was not confined to the encouragement
and strengthening of research. He himself was wont to thrill
audiences and to transmit enthusiasm. His very first concern
had been teaching. My own college teacher had been one of
Millikan's early collaborators on photoelectric research.
Accordingly, our textbook was the first that Millikan had
written, viz., "Mechanics, Molecular Physics, and Heat"
( 1903), as well as the sequel, "Electricity, Sound, and Light"
(with J. Mills, 1908). Of course, in high school, like everyone
else, I had had "A First Course in Physics" (with H. Gale, 1906). The aim of the last, as the authors claimed, was "a
better acquaintance of the social significance of science."
Millikan believed, "Physics is the most basic of all sciences
and the one upon which they all depend." He did admit later,
"We have learned not to take ourselves as seriously as the
19th-century physicists took themselves."

Millikan's altruism spread beyond academia and his
country. He became increasingly concerned about the road
to international peace. He favored the League of Nations,
which President Taft had called a "League to enforce
peace." The isolationism of the U.S., which wrecked the
League, he regarded as "one of the great tragedies." As an
individual, he remained a member of the Committee on
Intellectual Cooperation. Recognizing always the need for
collective security against individual madmen, he favored the
highway indicated "by most of the great souls who have
developed the world's greatest religions-men who like
Buddha and Jesus have depended almost exclusively upon
the development and use of the great spiritual forces . . .
suggested by the words brotherhood, love, pity, kindness,
altruism, duty, conscience, morality, words which ...
unquestionably stand for just as fundamental realities in the
experience of all human beings as words like matter, motion,
space, energy, weight, table, rock, etc." (He admitted, "It is
today as difficult to find a satisfactory definition of 'matter'
as of 'spirit.' ")

"The combination of science [what] and religion [ought],"
be believed, "provides the sole basis for rational and intelligent living." Science is credited with having revealed a God
who works through law, thus indicating the orderliness of the
universe and man's duty to live in harmony with it. "The God
of science is the 'Spirit of rational order and of orderly
development'-hence progress." He was convinced that
"there is actually no conflict whatever between science and
religion when each is correctly understood." "There has been
no conflict between the two as interpreted by the best minds
the world has produced."

The last chapter of his "Autobiography" dealt with "The
Two Supreme Elements in Human Progress," i.e., the spirit
of religion and the spirit of science. He regarded science and
religion as the two great sister forces which have pulled and
are still pulling the world onward and upward."

"The most important thing in the world is the belief in the
reality of moral and spiritual values." "An attitude of
altruistic idealism" is common in all religions, e.g., that
"found simply in the life and teachings of Jesus"-"the
essence of His message
...
.. Never man spake like this man!"
He was impressed with the Golden Rule, which, he insisted,
says that "you are the sole judge of what you ought to do."
(cf. A.N. Whitehead's definition of religion as "world loyalty"). Millikan believed that such action would have to be
based on some kind of "faith in the ultimate good." He noted
that "Einstein calls it the Intelligence manifest in Nature."
"If there is a better definition of God than that 1, at least, do
not know what it is."

Mindful of Job's personal dilemma, "Can man with
searching find God"?, Millikan concluded his "Autobiography" with another quotation from the cosmotheist Einstein,
"'It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of
conscious life perpetuating itself throughout all eternity, to
reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we
dimly perceive and to try humbly to comprehend even an
infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.' I
myself need no better definition of God than that, and some
such idea is in all religion as a basis for the idea of deity."

Millikan noted that "the Christian Church is the greatest
social institution in the country." There was never any mention of his own affiliation or activities, but he probably
was a member of the Congregational Church. His expressed
opinions, however, were more in the spirit of unitarianism
than of basic Christianity. He was wont to stress the second
great commandment with its altruistic object. The God of the
first commandment remained aloof, impersonal, a nebulous
being, unknown and unloving-quite different from Jesus'
Father whom He came to share.